Markus Zusak

Whoever named Himmel Street certainly had a healthy sense of irony. Not that is was a living hell. It wasn't. But is sure as hell wasn't heaven, either.

I actually feel quite self-indulgent at the moment, telling you all about me, me, me.(...) On the other hand, you're a human -you should understand self obsession.

I'm always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both. Still, they have one thing I envy. Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.

And I can promise you something, because it was a thing I saw many years later - a vision in the book thief herself - that as she knelt next to Hans Hubermann, she watched him stand and play the accordion. He stood and strapped it on in the alps of broken houses and played the accordion with kindness silver eyes and even a cigarette slouched on his lips. The bellows breathed and the tall man played for Liesel Meminger one last time as the sky was slowly taken away from her.

I guess when someone tells you something they they usually guard, you feel privileged, not because you know something no-one else knows, but because you feel chosen. You feel like that person wants her life to intersect with yours. I think that's what felt best about it.

Right. That's twenty-two fifty.""Twenty-two fifty?" We can't hide our exasperation."Well, yeah - this is a classy joint, you know.""That's obvious - the service is incredible.

Could she smell my breath? Could she hear my cursed circular heart beat revolving like the crime it is in my deathly chest?

The Proclaimers thunder through my head.Imagine it.Imagine killing someone to the tune of two Scottish nerds wearing glasses and flattop haircuts. How will I ever listen to that song again? What will I do if it comes on the radio? I'll think of the night I murdered another man and stole his life with my own hands.

For two days I went about my business. I travelled the globe as always, handing souls to the conveyor belt of eternity.

The scribbled signature black, onto the blinding global white, onto the thick soupy red.

I know who you are and I am ready. Not that I want to go, of course, but I will come." Those souls are always light because more of them have been put out.

People observe the colors of a day at its beginnings and ends, but to me it's quiet clear that a day merges through a multitude of shades and intonations, with each passing moment.

I deliberately seek out the colors to keep my mind off them, but now and then, I witness the ones who are left behind, crumbling among the jigsaw puzzle of realization, despair and surprise.

If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter.

Death's Diary: 1942 -It was a year for the ages, like 79, like 1346, to just name a few. Forget the scythe, God damn it, I needed a broom or a mop. And I needed a holiday.(...) They say that war is death's best friend, but I must offer you a different point of view on that one. To me, war is like the new boss who expects the impossible. He stands over your shoulder repeating one thing, incessantly. 'Get it done, get it done'. So you work harder. You get the job done. The boss however, does not thank you. He asks for more.

Death waits for no man - and if he does, he doesn't usually wait for very long.

How do you tell if something's alive? You check for breathing.

It felt as though the whole globe was dressed in snow. Like it has pulled it on, the way you pull on a sweater. Next to the train line, footprints were sunken to their shins. Trees wore blankets of ice. As you may expect, someone has died.